Titanic Lifeboat No. 14

Titanic lifeboat 14. The fourth/fifth/sixth boat to be lowered from the port side. Fifth Officer Lowe took charge of the boat. About 30-32 passengers were in it and there were ten or eleven crewmen and two stewardesses; probably no more than 45 in total when lowered. Lowe thought that the crowd began to be unruly and men threatened to jump into it, so as a matter of precaution, he fired a few times in the air with his gun when the boat was lowered away. Nobody was hit. People heard the shootings, however, and it may turn out that those who heard it thought that people were shot and killed. One young man had tried to enter the boat and been thrown out and either him or another man was threatened by officer Lowe, at gunpoint. When No. 14 was near the water, there was some sort of trouble and they let the boat drop three or four feet, which apparently led to the boat springing a leak and water started pouring into it, and some ladies had to take care of that problem. Later in the night, they encountered boats 4, 10, 12 and D and officer Lowe decided to distribute his passengers among the others boats, wanting to go back to the wreckage to see if he could save people in the water. It is believed that eight or ten crew remained, as well as second class passenger Charles Williams, whom Lowe took for rowing before the boat was lowered away (Williams would later claim that he had been swimming around in the water, yet officer Lowe's testimony proves that Williams entered the boat from the deck). Rowing into the area, No. 14 encountered few left alive: First class passenger William Hoyt was hauled in but died, a Chinese third class passenger was rescued as well as steward Harold Phillimore. There may have been a fourth person rescued, even though some in the crew thought there were three saved and one died and another crewman said they found four, but two died. After having rescued these people, they spotted waterfilled collapsible boat A and took the few people from it into boat 14. There were perhaps a dozen people on boat A. No. 14 reached the Carpathia, after 7 o'clock in the morning, with perhaps 28 or so people on board.